Demosthenes Quotes

“All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.”

“As a vessel is known by its sound whether it be cracked or not, so men are proved by their speeches whether they be wise or foolish.”

“Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.”

“By persistent labor man may attain to all excellence.”

“Close alliances with despots are never safe for free states.”

“Clouds cannot cover secret places, nor denials conceal truth.”

“Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.”

“Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.”

“Everything great is not always good, but all good things, are great.”

“Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states.”

“Good fortune is the greatest of blessings, but good counsel comes next, and the lack of it destroys the other also.”

“Great and unexpected successes are often the cause of foolish rushing into acts of extravagance.”

“He who confers a favor should at once forget it, if he is not to show a sordid ungenerous spirit.

To remind a man of a kindness conferred and to talk of it, is little different from reproach.”

“I decline to buy repentance at the cost of ten thousand drachmas.”

“I'll betide thee, say I, and may the Gods, or at least the Athenians, confound thee for a vile citizen and a vile third-rate actor! Read the evidence.”

“It is impossible for men engaged in low and groveling pursuits to have noble and generous sentiments. A man's thought must always follow his employment.”

“It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery.”

“It is the natural disposition of all men to listen with pleasure to abuse and slander of their neighbour, and to hear with impatience those who utter praises of themselves.”

“Men by their nature are inclined to despise the weak and flatter the strong.”

“No man who is not willing to help himself has any right to apply to his friends, or to the gods.”

“Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.”

“One believes in what one wants to believe in.”

“Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who are from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts, but brothers, not rivals, but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of intelligence...

The difference is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging.”

“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”

“Success has a great tendency to conceal and throw a veil over the evil deeds of men.”

“The best protection for the people is not necessarily to believe everything people tell them.”

“The end of wisdom is consultation and deliberation.”

“The facts speak for themselves.”

“The man who flies shall fight again.”

“The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once.”